More college students taking courses online

In the past few years, online learning has become more integrated into the mainstream education. For nearly two decades, online courses and programs were taught mostly by private for-profit institutions and were taken almost exclusively by students over the age of 25.

More and more traditional-age students are taking online courses and enrolling in 100 percent online programs. The latest figures reported by U.S. colleges and universities show that 70 percent of students are doing so at public institutions. Many of today’s students may have already taken online courses in high school, or even pursued K-12 education completely online, and expect to continue to do so in college.

Students wanting to attend college may not be able to afford to stop everything, move to campus and attend courses at times when schools want to offer them. They expect, like with many other things, that learning should be personalized and available on demand. Because of this, institutions that cater to this trend are seeing their enrollments grow.

Schools that want to serve today's students must adapt to this change in learning. It is not by coincidence that Wichita State University is now the third-highest producer of online credit hours of all the Kansas Board of Regents schools, following only Fort Hays State University and Johnson County Community College, respectively.

WSU has systematically increased its online offerings to address workforce needs. Because of this, 20 percent of all credit hours are now taken online. By fall 2017, we'll have 20 online certificates and degree programs. Just a few years ago, we had no fully online programs.

As we have built up online learning, we have seen that students are responding positively to being able to learn where and when they want.

Now that online learning has gone mainstream, higher education is exploring new ways of educating students and demonstrating that they have the requisite skills for the careers they are pursuing. The most notable change now is the rise in “atomized” learning – breaking down learning into discrete competencies or learning objectives.

WSU has engaged in this trend by creating short courses we call badges that award academic credit upon completion, provide specific and up-to-date learning and, most importantly, allow the student to post an electronic badge on their digital profiles (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn) to show employers and peers that they have learned a particular skill. In addition, we are working to allow students to stack these smaller credentialed units, like badges, to count as equivalent for required courses toward a certificate program or a full degree.

As higher education is undergoing this important change toward becoming more student centered and innovation driven, we at WSU are pleased to be a part of that change.

This story was originally published December 26, 2016 at 5:03 AM with the headline "More college students taking courses online."